An Inside Look Into a Leading 3D Mapping Technology Provider

An Inside Look Into a Leading 3D Mapping Technology Provider

About the Speaker

Ilya Shikov is Co-founder & CTO at TOPODRONE, a Swiss – based designer and manufacturer of high-precision surveying equipment. He is a surveyor with an educational background in engineering and he has over 10 years of experience in UAV-related R&D.  

Caption: Ilya Shikov, Co-founder & CTO at TOPODRONE

About the Company 

TOPODRONE is a Swiss – based designer and manufacturer of high-precision mobile surveying products for installation on UAVs, vehicles and backpacks. TOPODRONE’s hardware (LiDARs, high resolution cameras and PPK) are used for mapping and 3D modeling. Application areas include, but are not limited to forest and agricultural monitoring, construction and urban planning, and bathymetry. TOPODRONE’s advanced post-processing software provides users with easy-to-use innovative data processing workflows for automatic data generation, georeferencing and alignment using GNSS and IMU data post processing, and SLAM algorithms. For more information, visit topodrone.com

The Interview

Can you provide a brief history of TOPODRONE?

This year TOPODRONE, a Swiss – based designer and manufacturer of high-precision surveying equipment, celebrates our 5^th anniversary. Our mission is to provide affordable and reliable solutions for surveyors all over the world. Our HQ is in Montreux, Switzerland. and  we have a community of thousands of users globally who experiment and grow together with us advancing their portfolios and applying the newest surveying technologies. 

In 2018 we started as post-processing software developers and also integrated a GNSS receiver with an ordinary consumer drone – we invented a tool called PPK Upgrade Kit that allowed us to transform an ordinary UAV into a true surveying device. Within a year over 100 customers were using airborne photogrammetry surveying with small UAVs and high-precision TOPODRONE GNSS modules.

We have been continuing to research and develop our in-house photogrammetry, LiDAR and bathymetry technology.  Today we offer hardware and software solutions which have been developed by ordinary surveyors for ordinary surveyors to improve project time & cost efficiency as well as data accuracy. 

What are the key customer benefits of your new products?

Earlier this year TOPODRONE released a new lightweight 360° LiDAR model : LiDAR 100 & 100+ with a 100 m working flight altitude and LiDAR 200+ with a 200 m working flight altitude. All of them are Hesai-based and can be used as a single payload for different carriers and installed on a drone, car or backpack. 

These innovations are aligned with the company’s R&D goal to synchronize multiple data collection approaches: airborne & mobile for LiDAR surveying as well as photogrammetry, LiDAR and echo sounding technologies for drone bathymetry.  Thus, a surveyor is able to apply multiple payloads for any type of airborne and mobile surveying and a post-processing software from one manufacturer – TOPODRONE. In this way, our company becomes an all-in-one support center for any type of surveying query.  Our customers find not only products to purchase but also a professional partner with a global reach.

What is different about your lidar products?

Our recently released TOPODRONE LiDAR 200+, is one of the lightest and most compact 360° LiDARs on the market. It can generate very precise and thin point clouds thanks to a modern laser sensor, built-in high precision IMU and integrated GNSS receiver. One of its advantages is mobility: it is a true ‘LiDAR 3 in 1’ as it can be mounted on a drone, a car and a surveying backpack. In addition,  it is fully compatible with TOPODRONE P24 and P61 photogrammetric cameras. The camera can be connected to the laser scanner, a fixed installation for the LiDAR, as well as an option with installation of the camera on a 3-axis gimbal. SLAM algorithms for data processing in conditions of insufficient GNSS signal are supported with our TOPODRONE Post Processing Software.

What are you going to be demonstrating at Geo Week?

As usual we will showcase our photogrammetry, LiDAR and bathymetry solutions, including the recent R&D – TOPODRONE PT61 camera. 

We will also contribute to the conference programme and our Head of Business Developement, Alexander Lopukhov, will deliver a presentation as a speaker! 

Find some details about the session we participate in below:

Title: Applications of Remotely Sensed TopoBathymetric Data

Date: February 13

Where: off-line, Colorado Convention Center

We will be located at booth #501 and we are happy to grant all guests with a complimentary free expo ticket – contact us at info@topodrone.com

Why should people visit your booth?

TOPODRONE engineers and drone pilots will work at the booth all expo days. So, visitors can get all the tech information first hand. Also a few customers and partners will join us to share their experience of cooperating with us. We will run a few educational workshops. The schedule will be available at the web-site: https://topodrone.com/ 

What are some of the recent projects you completed with the systems?

Traditionally our products have been used for the following purposes: surveying for construction and urban planning, forest and agricultural monitoring, power line inspections, management of cultural heritage. This year we see increasing demand for our solutions in new application areas: renewable energy (solar panel farms and dams), mining (reservoirs and open pits), coastal management.

Here are a few customer experiences from beta testers of our new LiDAR model range. 

Atyges, TOPODRONE Spanish partner, and Gonzalo Malvarez from the Coastal Environments research group of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla experimented with the combination of bathymetry, new LiDAR 200+ and photogrammetry approaches to survey a reservoir in Spain. 

Simion Bruma, a UAV pilot from BDS Topografie SRL, successfully completed a comprehensive survey of the Old Barite Quarry in Suceava county, (Romania) using the TOPODRONE LiDAR 200+ system.

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